


The Pilots - Colliding Stars

by Munnin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Aftermath - Chuck Wendig
Genre: Battle of Jakku, Combat related injury, Fighter Pilots, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, stranded with the enemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:17:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Munnin/pseuds/Munnin
Summary: Shot down over Jakku and injured, ace X-wing pilot Garr Gal is stranded on the desert world. And he's not alone.





	The Pilots - Colliding Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Crispy for the prompt and Jess for betaing.

Sensation came back faster than memory, or vision. 

Garr Gal felt hot, sore, dizzy all at once. He tried to open his eyes, but the left one didn’t seem to want to open. And the light coming into his right was too much. Too bright. He tried to move, to pull at the collar of his orange flight suit but – 

His head spun and he turned to vomit. 

Then he passed out.

When he woke up again he was cold and it was dark.

And he was thirsty. So thirsty. 

“Don’t try to move,” a voice said, from just outside his range of vision. Male, at a guess. But somehow muffled and modulated. “Here.” 

A canteen was held to his lips and he drank. But not as deep as he wanted to. He reached for the canteen but it was pulled away from him.

“Not too much. We don’t have much to spare.”

“Who – ”

“That doesn’t matter.” He could hear the cap being screwed back onto the canteen. “Just rest for now.”

Garr wanted more – more water for a start, but as the other person was laying a thermal blanket over him, all of that seemed too hard to manage. Sleep was good. Sleep would do. He closed his eyes and let it happen.

They say third time’s a charm and this time it was. When Garr opened his eyes, he remembered. 

***

The battle over Jakku was fierce and terrible. The Rebellion were outnumbered, outgunned and outclassed. The head had been cut off the Imperial serpent. But what was fighting back was stronger than they ever expected. 

Then someone on the crippled Concord did the unimaginable – locking the tractor beam on to a Dreadnought they dragged it down into the planet’s atmosphere in a terrifying suicide run. 

It left a hole in the Imperial lines. A hole Garr and his fellow X-wing pilots gunned for. 

For Garr, the rest of the battle had been a series of death defying spirals and dodges, near misses and close calls. Nothing mattered but the next victory, the next kill. 

And there was that one TIE that clung to him, matching his every move. 

The other pilot was good. But not as good as Garr! 

He twisted around in a sharp flip, chasing the other ship. That TIE became his main focus. His mission. No matter what else happened in that battle, Garr wanted to bring down that TIE.

Just because. Because no-one got the better of Garr Gal! 

It seemed like forever before he managed to get a clear shot, skimming the outer atmosphere of the desert planet. He cut his engines just long enough to let Jakku’s gravity take hold of his ship, seeming to fall…

And then powered back up to flip. Firing a shot that clipped the TIE’s wing. 

Just as the TIE turned, and clipped his. 

The next thing he knew was hot sand on his cheek and the need to throw up.

***

The memory of the dizzying spin downward made Garr want to throw up again. 

He rolled onto his side, realising the sand under him was hot again but a hand stopped him. 

“Don’t throw up. We can’t waste the water. Here, chew this.” 

Garr accepted the slither of something strange and woody that somehow tasted… green. 

He looked up into the eyes of his savour. 

And yelled a curse, reaching for his sidearm. 

The TIE pilot stood over him, face hidden by the dark bubble of the helmet. “Don’t.” The pilot held up his gloved hands, both in warning and surrender. “You don’t need that. I won’t hurt– ”

But Garr’s hatred of Imperials kicked in and he twisted and fired. 

“NO!” 

The shot went wide as something seemed to smack against the inside of Garr’s wrist. 

It was only then he realised they were sitting in the lee of his fallen ship. 

His shot hit the damaged coolant tank.

And the TIE pilot lunched himself at Garr.

All there was after that was heat, pain and light.

Then nothing.

***

There was no knowing how long he was out, but when Garr came to, he felt stiff. Like he hadn’t moved for days. It was night. And Garr was cold. Colder than he could remember being.

Yet again, memory took its time to filter through and he reached for his blaster again.

But it wasn’t there.

“I had to take it off you.” The voice was less muffled now. And somewhat more human. “Couldn’t risk you trying to blow us up again.”

Garr turned to see a young man, much his own age. Most of the pilot’s armour was gone, he was stripped down to the shiny black undersuit which seemed to ripple and catch on odd spots as if half melted. The man’s dark blonde hair was cut short and brisling. 

“You jumped me!” Garr growled, trying to sit up, scanning around the little camp for his blaster. “Murderous Imperial bastard.” 

“I protected you from the blast,” the TIE pilot went on, utterly unperturbed by the insults. “You’re lucky Imperial issue flight suits are flash resistant.”

Garr fought his way to a sitting position, only then realising one of his legs wouldn’t bend. “What have you done to me!”

“Saved your leg, hopefully.” The TIE pilot went on, mixing something in a small bowl. “As long as you don’t try to move it too much. Your right knee was shattered on landing. Two of your ribs are cracked. You’re going to need time in a bacta tank. If the Rebellion can afford it.” 

“If the Empire didn’t plunder the galaxy’s resources– ” Garr broke off as the TIE pilot handed him the bowl. Garr practically fell on it, wolfing down most of the bowl. Whatever was in it was hot and smelt like food. But Garr was starving and he ate most of it without tasting it. 

When he finally slowed down, he looked across at the other man who was sitting serenely, eating from his own bowl. “Why are you helping me?”

The man shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“We are enemies,” Garr pointed out. “You’re an Imperial.”

“We were enemies,” the man corrected, pointing up at the empty sky. “Up there. Down here, we’re just beings. Either way, the battle is over.” 

“The Empire can’t have won. You know that right?” When the TIE pilot didn’t rise to the bait, Garr went on. “It’s all over. What happened up there, it was just the last death throes of the Empire. The New Republic started today.” 

Still nothing. The blonde man sat quietly, chewing each mouthful slowly. 

“How do I know you won’t murder me in my sleep?” Garr laughed bitterly, passing the bowl back. “I don’t even know your name.”

The man seemed to consider for a moment before answering. “CJ.”

“That’s not a name. What does that stand for?”

CJ shrugged but didn’t answer. 

“I’m Garr.” Not that CJ had asked but Garr felt like to was polite to give his name in return. 

CJ nodded. And said nothing. 

Which only infuriated Garr more. “Why is it so damn cold here? I thought Jakku was meant to be hot?”

CJ set his bowl aside and laid back on the sand, looking up at the stars. “Desert worlds have thin atmospheres. Heat comes in and heat goes out.” 

Which was seemingly all he would say.

“Well?” Garr demanded. “We’re going to freeze to death out here. Can’t we light a fire or something?” 

CJ shrugged, eyes still upward. “There’s not much here to burn.” He closed his eyes with a slow sigh. “Burrow down into the sand. It holds the heat.”

The silence between them seemed to stretch out forever, itching at Garr. The TIE pilot was too calm. Too damn okay with all this. Kriffing serene, almost. 

Garr wanted to fill that silence, to ask a thousand questions. To demand to know how and why and what next. He cleared his throat but CJ just lifted a finger to his lips and breathed in the silence. 

***

Garr woke to the sound of growling to his left. 

CJ was nowhere to be seen and panic tightened within Garr's aching ribs. By the dim light of the one functional lantern he could just make out the shape of something canine – long jaws and powerful teeth. It circled him as much as their little encampment of ship’s wreckage would allow, sharp spines jutting at its spine. 

Garr searched frantically around him for a weapon – a stick, a rock, anything! The damn Imperial had taken his blaster and left him here defenceless.

The animal circled again; closer, bolder, snapping its great jaw at him. 

_Great!_ 'Garr thought to himself, wrapping his hand around a lump of packed sand. _All this to be eaten by a mongrel._ He took a deep breath and bellowed at the thing, hoping noise alone would be enough to drive it off. "Come here, you monster! Come get some."

The thing howled and charged but pulled up sharp as a whistle sounded across the dunes. The creature seemed confused, skittish. It was tilting its head back and forth to get a fix on the sound. 

CJ appeared a few metres away as if melting out of the darkness. He whistled again, removing his gloves and helmet as he crouched down on his hunches, holding a hand out to the animal.

It padded to him snarling, its teeth reflecting the starlight. The TIE pilot didn't flinch, but held his hand steady, even as the creature snapped at him. Little by little it inched closer; sniffing and growling.

"Toss me the blaster," Garr whispered, "I'll finish the monster off."

CJ looked over, cocking his head as he reached to scratch behind the dog-beast's ears. "So quick to kill?"

"It would have killed me!" The rebuke sounded hollow now that the beast was whining and pressing close to be scratched. 

"She might have," CJ allowed, giving the thing's flank a rub. "You're more meat than she's seen in a long time, and there's more water in your blood than she'll find in weeks. Why shouldn't she kill you? Unlike you, there’s no malice in it for her. She kills to live, not the other way around."

“What is that supposed to mean? _Unlike me_?”

“I watched you during the battle,” said CJ, not looking away from the creature as he pulled the canteen from his belt. He poured a capful of water into his palm for the beast to lap up. "You delighted in the kill. You weren’t defending your fleet or protecting your team. You were hunting.”

“Says the Imperial killer. How many of my people did you take down in that fight? How much blood in on your hands?” 

“Too much,” CJ answered contemplatively as the creature nosed his canteen in hope of more. “But I never took pleasure in it.” He poured out another measure of water.

“I thought we didn’t have water to waste?” 

CJ cocked his head, light blue eyes flashing. “It’s a waste to help another being?” he asked, a little archly, petting the creature’s flanks. “I thought Rebels claimed to be the _compassionate_ ones.”

“You know what I mean,” Garr growled.

The creature growled back, stepping in front of CJ almost protectively. 

CJ chuckled and gave the spiky lupin a little shove. “Off with you now. Go back to your pups.” The creature danced away, yipping playfully. 

“How did you know it wouldn’t attack you?” Garr demanded as the animal vanished off into the pre-dawn glow.

“Desert curs are common on many dry worlds. They make good cooperative hunters if you know how to respect them.”

“Someone kept _that_ as a pet?” Garr spat, incredulous. 

“Not a pet” CJ shook his head. “A partnership.” 

“Is that what this is?” Garr arched an eyebrow. “Are you keeping me as a pet or a partner?”

CJ snorted and got up, dragging in the bundle he’d left outside the camp. A pile of detritus strapped onto the remains of a TIE fighter’s wing. “I salvaged some supplies from my ship.”

“What’s left of it, you mean?” Garr couldn’t help but gloat. After all, he was the one who brought CJ down.

Just as CJ had brought him down. 

And which of them was still walking? 

Garr shelved that train of thought. “They’ll be looking for survivors, you know. The New Republic.” 

CJ give him a blank look. As if he wasn’t sure which of them Garr was trying to convince. 

“We’re a long way from the main battle.” CJ unpacked his collection - some thermal lining, some lengths of wire and strapping. Some damaged ration packs, not yet spoilt. Several bundles of electronics parts and a small tool kit.

CJ sat cross-legged, opening up the tool kit, and started working.

After three or four attempts to goad the other man into talking, Garr gave up and went back to sleep.

He woke up in a sweat, the midday sun beating down on him. Only it wasn’t. He was in the shade. 

The chunk of TIE wing had been buried in the sand behind him, tilted to protect him from the worst of the sun. Scraps of thermal lining had been patched together into a sail over him. 

And yet again, CJ was gone. But this time he’d left a small bowl of food and another of water. 

Garr couldn’t bring himself to eat the strange green bread-like thing, his stomach seemed to rebel at the thought. Besides, he might need it later. But he drank the water. Slowly this time. It tasted sandy but strangely... flat. Like it was missing something. All the chemicals and treatments Garr was used to. He realised then that part of the shelter was hooked up to a crude vaporator rig, jury-rigged from ship parts. 

He was almost cosy, if it hadn’t been for the burning pain coming from his leg. 

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to look under the thermal sheet CJ had wrapped around his bound leg. But right now it throbbed, and felt twice as heavy as it should. If he could get up the courage to just look.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Even in full sun, CJ seemed to melt out of nowhere. As if he was just stepping into focus from the heat hazy over the sand. “You don’t want to see.” 

“It doesn’t feel right.” Garr was aware of the whine in his voice and hated it. Hated this. Being helpless. Hated being at the mercy of an Imperial. And hated not being able to hate the man for being too damn nice.

“I have something that will help.” CJ pulled a cloth bundle from inside his flight suit. “But you don’t want to see me apply it.” 

“Why?” Garr demanded. “What are you giving me?”

“You just have to trust that it will help.” CJ crouched at Garr’s ankle, lifting the sheet enough to block the view and applied something to Garr’s damaged knee. 

There was a sharp sting and then a spreading feeling of… good. Not cool or healing exactly. Just good. Like it was all going to be okay. “What did you do to me?” 

“It’s not important.” CJ folded up the bundle again and put it away. “Just rest.”

Garr let the feeling wash over him, and wash him away.

When he woke up again, it was worse and he hissed in pain. “Whatever you did, do it again.”

CJ paused what he was doing and rolled down his sleeve, hiding something small and white in the crook of his elbow. “Not yet.”

“Why?” Garr scowled, “Keeping it all for yourself?” 

“Too much can be detrimental.” For the first time since they met, CJ looked annoyed as he focused back on the wiring he was working on. 

“You sound like you speak from experience?”

But CJ once again, refused to bite. 

“I thought Imperial pilots were too good for that sort of thing? Or does the Empire get you hooked on something just to keep you in line.” 

CJ scowled but said nothing. 

“Or maybe you were addicted before you joined. Do your family send you to the academy to get _straightened out_.”

Stony silence. 

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Let me guess? You were a bad seed, fell in with the wrong crowd. Did you steal money from your folks to fuel your habit? Got caught with your hand in your mama’s cred-wallet?” 

CJ scowled and Garr knew he’d hit a nerve. Stir-crazy as he was, Garr couldn’t help himself. Getting a reaction, any reaction out of CJ was a victory. 

“They send you off to get clean first or dump you straight into basic training? The withdrawals must have been hell. And I bet your instructors weren’t gentle with you either. I bet they _loved_ making an example out of you!”

A part snapped in CJ’s hand, a growl rippling from his throat. “Enough!” 

“I worked it out you know. C.J. Stands for Coffin Jockey, doesn’t it?” Garr smiled viciously. “That’s what stormtroopers call TIE pilots. Coffin Jockeys. Is CJ the designation before your numbers? Too ashamed to use your real name?”

CJ shot to his feet, hands balled in a fist. And for a moment, Garr wondered if he’d gone too far, if CJ’s pacifist streak had just broken. 

Probably served himself right, all things considered. Garr knew he had the punch coming. He was almost looking forward to it. Maybe he’d get a couple in of his own. Better than just laying here. 

But CJ unclenched his fists with a forced breath and vanished into the dusk. 

He didn’t come back that night. Or the next day. 

Garr slept on and off, unable to do much else. When he was awake, he worried. 

Worried the Republic wasn’t looking for him.   
Or had given up. 

Or that CJ wasn’t coming back. And that he was going to die slowly out here. 

Or the spiky dog thing would be back and he’d die fast. 

He worried himself back to sleep and only woke when something pricked at his leg.

He opened his eyes to see CJ crouched next to him, attaching wriggling white worm things in a circle around his ruined knee. “Kriff! What is wrong with you? Get those away off me!”

“Your knee is septic.” CJ answered mildly, as if he hadn’t been away for ages and wasn’t applying biting worm things to Garr’s skin. 

Skin that was mottled, black and swelling weirdly between the webbing that held it to the splint. 

“They’ll bring the swelling down and drain off the poisoned blood.”

“Why do I feel weird?” Garr asked, his head going all floaty and light. 

“Sand-leech venom contains a sedative euphoriant. Stops their prey moving too much while they’re feeding.” CJ explained, setting them in a ring around Garr’s shattered knee. 

The words _venom_ and _prey_ , should have worried Garr but… it all seemed so far away. 

“They’ll fall off when they’re full.” CJ explained, covering Garr’s legs again. “I thought I could reuse them once they’d digested the blood. But the sepsis kills them as soon as they detach. I could only collect enough for one treatment.”

“That’s why you were gone?” Garr slurred. “Finding these? How…how do you know that?”

“I just do.” CJ rolled up his own sleeve and plucked the last worm from the cloth. He didn’t apply it straight away, just held it, watching it wriggle between his fingertips. 

“The spiky dog things. The drug leeches. The make-shift vaperator. That’s not Imperial training. You grew up on a desert world, didn’t you?”

CJ didn’t comment but set the sand-leech in the crock of his arm, hissing softly as the venom entered his blood steam. 

Garr watched him through heavy eyes. 

In the days- what, had it been days? Or weeks? In all the time they’d been here, Garr’d never thought to ask CJ if he was injured. He’d just taken it for granted the man was fine. 

Because he never complained. Never said anything. 

But there CJ was – head fallen back, eyes half closed as he swallowed and shuddered. Like a spice addict taking a hit. A rare moment of vulnerability cracking the man’s otherwise stoic facade. 

It was the only time Garr had seen him show much emotion. Something like pleasure, something like relief. But something like regret too. 

Then it passed and the passive mask settled back into place. 

“I need to finish this.” CJ pulled himself back together, rolling his sleeve down over the feeding worm. “We’re both running out of time.” He sat down with the pile of electronics, seeming to slip back into the same zen state of serenity as before. 

“You never said where you’re from,” Garr pointed out, feeling the initial high subside into a slow, deep glow. 

“You never asked.” CJ didn’t look up from his project. “You won’t have heard of it.”

“Hey!” Garr protested, sitting up a bit. “I’m a well-travelled man, I’ll have you know. I’ve been all over. Try me.”

CJ raised an eyebrow at him and shrugged. “Cantonica.”

All of Garr’s protest died. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ve never heard of it.” 

The silence settled between then, filling up the space between them. 

“I’m from Brentaal,” Garr said, just to scratch the itch of silence. “About as Core as it gets.” 

CJ hummed absently, clearly no longer listening. 

Garr wasn’t put off. “Is that why you joined the Empire? To get away from a boring home-world that no-one’s heard of?”

“Bad seed, wrong crowd,” CJ parroted, refusing to be drawn in. 

Garr started to say something but once again, CJ gave him that very flat look, pressing a finger to his lips before going back to work.

***

Garr woke up to shouts and someone shaking him by the shoulders. People in New Republic uniforms. He blinked, trying to remember how to speak. He still felt groggy and hung-over. Coming down from the sand-leech high was a bitch. “How… how did you find me?”

“Your distress beacon.” One of the rescue team answered as they lifted him onto a stretcher. “We’ve been scanning for survivors but you came down a long way from the main crash-sites. We wouldn’t have found you if your beacon hadn’t started broadcasting on the Rebel frequency. 

“Where’s CJ?” Garr demanded, trying to look around. “He was… where did he go?”

“There was no-one here but you.” 

“We have to wait. I can’t– He helped me.” Garr tried to sit up but they pushed him down, pressing a mask over his face as the ship took off.

“We’ll look, but we’ve been scanning. There’s no-one here. No-one for clicks in any direction.”

“He was here. He saved my life.” Whatever gas was in the mask was doing its job and Garr felt himself drift off again. “He was an Imperial but he saved my life. He set the beacon.”

“It was a Rebel frequency we found you on,” the medic pointed out, pressing an injector to the side of Garr’s neck. “How would he know that if he was Imperial?” 

It was a question that haunted Garr the rest of his life.


End file.
